In this day and age of the 7 or so second grab on TV, it now appears that readers are challenged if words are "big" or need to be looked-up in a dictionary. They don't like it. Oh dear....not a happy future books.
"We chase "fast culture" at our peril - unusual words and difficult art are good for us, says Will Self.
We are living in a risk-averse culture - there's no doubt about that.
But the risk that people seem most reluctant taking is not a physical but a mental one: just as the concrete in children's playgrounds has been covered with rubber, so the hard truth about the effort needed for intellectual attainment is being softened by a sort of semantic padding.
Our arts and humanities education at secondary level seems particularly afflicted by falling standards - so much so that universities are now being called upon to help write new A-level syllabuses in order to cram our little chicks with knowledge that, in recent years, has come to seem unpalatable, if not indigestible - knowledge such as English vocabulary beyond that which is in common usage.
Both general readers and specialist critics often complain about my own use of English - not only in my books, but also in my newspaper articles and even in radio talks such as these. "I have to look them up in a dictionary", they complain - as if this were some kind of torture."
"We chase "fast culture" at our peril - unusual words and difficult art are good for us, says Will Self.
We are living in a risk-averse culture - there's no doubt about that.
But the risk that people seem most reluctant taking is not a physical but a mental one: just as the concrete in children's playgrounds has been covered with rubber, so the hard truth about the effort needed for intellectual attainment is being softened by a sort of semantic padding.
Our arts and humanities education at secondary level seems particularly afflicted by falling standards - so much so that universities are now being called upon to help write new A-level syllabuses in order to cram our little chicks with knowledge that, in recent years, has come to seem unpalatable, if not indigestible - knowledge such as English vocabulary beyond that which is in common usage.
Both general readers and specialist critics often complain about my own use of English - not only in my books, but also in my newspaper articles and even in radio talks such as these. "I have to look them up in a dictionary", they complain - as if this were some kind of torture."
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